Kay S. Pedrotti
kayspedrotti@gmail.com
With what’s going on in June, July and August for the Pedrottis, it’s been tough to try to get ready for kids’ camps, and for company in July, and more. It’s just plain too easy to give up and rest in my recliner sometimes.
Most of my “stopping places” are not places at all, but things (the prime subject of a previous column.) I’ll run across things I could not remember having, or they belonged to a parent, child, grandparent or other relative. Then my mind goes to that person, that era, and takes a vacation in the present.
Grandma Biggers’ recipe book and her 1930s King James Version of the Bible. A photo of the front yard of the home of my Smith grandparents on North Main in Fitzgerald, Ga.
Dozens of my father’s books, without which I would be a woefully under-educated writer. A flower vase given to me by my Aunt Betty Smith Marsh, just before she died. An “Elf on the Shelf” that was Adrien’s. A 1950s copy of the storybook my aunt Elsie Biggers Cook would read to her primary students, with such wonderful old tales as “The Three Bears,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “Jack and the Beanstalk.” Do parents ever tell the little ones these priceless, funny and heroic old legends?
There are a million reminders around my house of things that happened when one child or another was born or in high school, mementoes of places Bob and I visited when we could afford little vacations, various moves we made around the country – it just goes on and on, and I forget to get the clothes from the dryer, start the dishwasher, sweep, or carry the trash out by starting with the papers stacked up everywhere!
Maybe – I can’t be sure – my mind will turn to a more literary bent when I actually start writing my long-sought autobiography. Surely there have been enough interesting places I’ve been and things I’ve accomplished in the memory banks somewhere that I could risk writing it all down! It’s hard when the good stuff returns to the brain and then vanishes all over again.
Summer is supposed to be a time of relaxation and fun for most people, although some have to work even harder to keep their spouses and children happy and occupied, or have jobs that don’t allow too much time off when others are out having fun. There’s one thing in my office that keeps saying “summer” to me– a photo of the casino/restaurant building looking down on the clear, cold water of Radium Springs in Albany, Ga. That is still one of my favorite places on earth. I miss it, so here I go into another set of memories…
Kay S. Pedrotti has spent some 50 years writing for newspapers. She is a past president of Lamar Arts Inc. and now serves on the board of directors. She lives in Milner with her husband Bob Pedrotti.
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